Researchers in Australia say that providing
college students with a free to use internet based alcohol screening and
intervention program significantly reduces long term alcohol consumption
habits.

The researchers pooled a sample of over 7000 Australian
college undergraduate students, and via a web based questionnaire, asked about
drinking habits, the most drinks consumed in a single session within the month,
and harmful effects resulting from drinking, amongst other questions.

Of the 7237 students polled, 2435 of these met criteria for “harmful”
drinking habits. Of these 2435, 1251 were assigned randomly to receive internet
based interventions and the other 1184 were assigned to a non intervention
control group.

Those assigned to the web based intervention group received
information about healthier drinking behaviors, as well as personalized information
based on the answers they provided in their survey, such as:

What their blood alcohol concentration reached during a recent
heavy binge drinking session

How much they spend on alcohol a month

How their drinking compares to other students

They also received resource information via web hyperlinks
to programs that offered help with problem drinking, or smoking cessation.

Students assigned to the control group received no feedback
or support.

After
1 month, students from the web based intervention group drank 17% less than
control group students

After
6 months, the web based students drank 11% less

The researchers hope that web based interventions might
provide significant benefit to this at-risk group of young people, saying, “Given the
scale on which proactive Web-based electronic screening and brief intervention
(e-SBI) can be delivered and its acceptability to student drinkers, we can be
optimistic that a widespread application of this intervention would produce a benefit
in this population group.”

Here are 2 facts about alcoholism: It tends to get worse over time (it is progressive) and most people experience a fairly similar progression of symptoms and consequences. Here is a timeline which charts the progressive experiences of alcoholism through the early, middle and late stages. If you have a drinking problem, find out where you fall on the timeline and consider what’s coming in the future. Read Article